Reviewing and Book Reviews

I've spent the past few weeks researching book review blogs and I've noticed a number of things.

1. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of book review blogs on the web.
2. A lot of people don't know how to review books - in my opinion anyway.

(The first I hadn't realised at all. There's a whole community of book bloggers out there to look forward to! But back to my main point which is the lack of real reviews on some of these blog sites.)

Generally speaking a review should examine or assess something; giving you the good, the bad and the amazingly awesome. As an avid reviewer, I expect the person writing the review to give me some sort of personal response too e.g. their favourite part about the something and their least favourite part. Granted sometimes that something needs to be explained because it might be new and a bit difficult to understand.

That being said, I think the worst thing you can do in a review is just sit there and only explain something. That's not a review at all. Now in terms of book reviews, I don't expect to search for a book review about a book that I may be thinking of buying only for the website I've stumbled upon to tell me everything that happens in the book. That is not a review, that is a recap; and those are two very different things. I understand the need to sometimes refer directly to the plot, aka spoilers, (I have spoilers in my blog posts but I always give a warning before and after it!), but to spend 90% of your blog post telling the story does not make your blog post a review.

It bugs me even more when it's popular websites and even more so when the person has been given the book for free by a publisher. Not only does it give readers a bad impression of book review blogs, but it also encourages aspiring book reviewers to follow in these footsteps by posting recaps labelled as reviews.

Questions for you: 

• What do you think should make up a book review?
• How often do you read book reviews before buying a book?
  Personally, I prefer to read book reviews after I've read the book so then I can see other people's opinions and thoughts. :)